Lizzy and the Rainmaker

Lizzy and the Rainmaker

  Copyright 2011 Matthew Holley

  Chapter 1

  "Ain't this exciting?" I exclaimed, standing up in our single horse-driven wagon to get a better look at the exciting and bustling town of Stillwater.

  "Elizabeth Viola Cooper, sit down before you fall out!" my ma, Annie, barked.

  I knew from past experience that when Ma addressed me by my given name, instead of the usual “Lizzy”, she meant business. I reluctantly sat back down on my sun-bleached wooded bench next to my younger brother, Billy and even younger sister, Katie, but my excitement wasn’t dampened.

  "What kind of example are you setting for your brother and sister?" Ma said.

  "They ain't paying me no mind."

  "Stop saying, "ain't" and stay your butt down before I have to tear your hide in front of all these folks."

  I knew Ma would never make good on her threat, she just worried so over us kids. I did my best not to give her too much grief since she was raising us by herself. You see, Pa was killed in an accident at work some time back and it’s just been us four and, of course, Grandma Viola whom never did like going into town. “It’s a den of iniquity”, she would say.

  Despite Ma’s scalding, the wonderment of the fast-pace excitement offered by the "big city" could not be wiped from my face as I smiled at the sights, sounds, and smells of town. It was a treat for me every time my family made our bimonthly pilgrimage into town to buy supplies and to sell our goods. On this trip we brought with us several dozen chicken eggs, stalks of corn harvested from our small field, and a couple of quilts hand sewn by Grandma Viola.

  I had to squint my eyes as a small puff of wind blew dust towards us churned up by a passing stage coach full of people leaving the nearby train station and heading for the much bigger town of Jackson. The dusty conditions were due to a year long drought being suffered throughout the country. The lack of rain created dust storms every time the wind decided to blow. The many various shop, lined up on both sides of the street, kept a dusty display window despite the shop owner’s futile attempts to keep them clean.

  Ma turned our horse-drawn wagon towards the town's general store and said, "Whoa, boy.” as she pulled back on the reigns. The horse obeyed her command and stopped, blowing dust from its equine nostrils and simultaneously sending a quiver down its brown back to knock off some of the traveling dust. The horse began slurping up water from a troth provided by the shop owners for their patron’s horses.

  As I was helping Katie down from our wagon, I noticed a painted wagon on the other side of the rust-colored road with a crowd of people gathered around it. On both sides of the wagon were painted the words, "Snake Oil Liniment. A cure-all for anything that ails you!" and under those words in smaller print it read, "Licensed Rainmaker". I wondered to myself if one could actually obtain a license for such ridiculous nonsense.

  A colorful little man was standing between the wagon and the crowd separated only by a small wooden table full of an assortment of bottles varying in size and color. He supported the strangest looking dark red mustache I had ever had the humorous pleasure of seeing. It reminded me of the horns of a steer, the way the ends pointed up towards the sky. He was dressed in a lime-green suit with a matching bowtie, black polished shoes, and a black stove-pipe hat with his red curly hair poking out from under it. He carried an ivory handle walking cane which he was using to point to the bottles as he gave his sales pitch.

  "Ladies and gentlemen of Stillwater, please gather 'round for I'm about to cure all your ailments. In these bottles are the most powerful elixirs known to man, concocted by medicine men in Asia. A secretly blended mixture of venom and oil from the giant cobras living in their jungles will cure anything from a nasty cold to a dreadful hangover to curing consumption and everything in between."

  I stopped and watched the salesman with annoyance in my eyes. Pa had warned me against imposters such as this one, trying to sell impossible dreams to gullible people. He always said not all snakes crawled on the ground. I recognized this man as such a person and continued to leer at him. My frustration grew as I realized some folks in the crowd seemed to believe the lies this man was feeding them.

  "Is there one among you who would like to try a sample of my miracle remedies; someone with an ailment perhaps."

  "I would," a frail sounding female voice called out from the back of the crowd.

  Out stepped a skinny, young blond woman with a small but noticeable scar just above her right eye. Coughing and wheezing, she approached the salesman.

  "What's your ailment, young lady?"

  "The doctors say I have asthma and---" she coughed loudly.” There’s nothing they can do for me."

  "That’s because doctors don't have what I have. Now, let's see."

  The salesman slowly looked over each bottle before choosing a small red one.

  "Yes, this is the right one."

  He uncorked the bottle and handed it to the lady.

  "Take a swallow, young lady."

  She did as she was instructed while the crowd looked on. She placed the bottle back on the table and ran her hand down her throat and over her chest. She started exaggerating her breathing, inhaling and exhaling deeply.

  "I can breath!" she cried. "Look, no more coughing! It worked! Thank you, thank you so much. I must have some! How much is it?"

  "For you, only a dollar."

  She presented a dollar coin, gave it to the salesman, and walked away hugging the bottle tightly as if she was a mother protecting her child from danger.

  "Do I have any more takers?" the salesman asked, scanning the crowd.

  "Your sign says you're a rainmaker," a man in the crowd said. "Can you make it rain?"

  "Yes, sir, I can. I was instructed in the ancient art of rainmaking by a powerful Cherokee medicine man years ago. Are any of you in need of a rainmaker? I have my drums in back of the wagon."

  "It hasn't rained here all year. Our crops are withering away and the river is getting so low it's becoming difficult for the loggers to move their logs downstream," another desperate voice in the crowd sang out.

  "Well, for the small price of one hundred dollars, I can give you folks some rain."

  I looked at the faces in the crowd to determine if any of them looked like they believed this snake in the grass. Much to my disbelief, I saw several whom seemed to be excited about the possibility of this "rainmaker" being able to make good on his promise. I couldn’t hold my anger back anymore. I approached the salesman.

  "You should be ashamed of yourself, filling these good folks' heads with false promises! You're nothing more than a lying cheat!"

  "Dear girl, I'm not a cheat. I make good on all my promises."

  “Okay then, you make it rain first and then we'll pay you!"

  "My dear, it doesn't work that way," the salesman patronizingly said through his fake grin. "I must have the money in hand first, and then I can give my full attention to the task at hand. I can't have the worry of whether you good folks will pay me after the job is done. Not to say that you’ll wouldn’t"

  "You need to go and leave these people be! We don’t need the likes of you trying to steal our hard earned money! Now, get!” I angrily ordered.

  "I'll not be run out of town by some little chick-a-dee like you."

  "Then, I'll run you out of town," Sheriff Johnson said as he stepped through the crowd holding a yellow piece of paper in his hand.

  Sheriff Johnson was a tall man and built like an oak tree. His dark hair was beginning to grey and his age showed through the wrinkles around his eyes but, none the less, he wasn’t a man you wanted to get into a tussle with. He was also an honest man and wore his badge with pride but he wouldn’t hesitate to
take you down if he found you on the wrong side of the law. He had also been a close friend to my Pa and, therefore, to me.

  "Sheriff…how can I help you?" the salesman nervously asked.

  "By leaving these good people alone and skipping town."

  "Now, Sheriff, I have every right to be here. You can't run me out of town."

  "I won't have to. After reading this telegram I just received, these folks will do it for me."

  "What's it say?" a women in the crowd asked.

  "It says, 'Good townspeople of Stillwater, be wary of a traveling salesman claiming to be a rainmaker. He took our town for a hundred dollars and produced no rain. He travels in a painted wagon and wears a green suit and a black stove-pipe hat. He has reddish hair and an English mustache and travels with his young wife who has a small scar over her right eye."

  The edgy salesman slowly started putting his bottles back into his wagon. The glare of the crowd was filling him with fear and he started noticeably perspiring. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. The crowd saw him as the snake I knew he was.

  "Listen to me,” the salesman pleaded as he continued to load up his wagon. “That telegram is a vicious lie. I would never cheat anyone out of their money. I'm an honest, God-fearing man."

  "You finish putting your stuff back in that wagon and leave this town before we decide to tar and feather you and run you out on a rail," Sheriff Johnson warned.

  "There's no need to do that. I'll leave, but only because I see that this town has no need for my special services."

  The salesman put the last of his bottles into the wagon, climbed aboard, and tipped his hat as he took off down the road.

  "Don't forget to pick up you conniving wife!" I yelled.

  As if on cue, the lady with the scar whose asthma was “miraculously” cured scrambled into the painted wagon and, together, the salesman and his wife were off to con some other folks out of their money. It serves people right if they want to be so gullible as to believe in miracles, especially from a clown like that one was.

  I watched as Sheriff Johnson bent down and picked up a pebble from the ground. He presented it to the crowd and sarcastically said,” I have a magic pill here that will make you strong as a bull. Do I have a volunteer? Who will buy it for…say…twenty dollars?”

  A few folks in the crowd chuckled while others looked away in embarrassment and shame for being so naïve.

  I addressed the dispersing crowd. "I can't believe some of you actually believed that man! How foolish can you be?"

  "That's enough, Lizzy," Ma said. I hadn't notice she was behind me. "Let's get inside and leave these good folks alone. They have enough egg on their faces."

  We walked inside Summerland's General Store which was stocked with nearly anything a person could need. Billy immediately walked over to the right side of the store where a brand-new ax was displayed on the wall. Its handle was made from red mahogany and its steel head was polished to perfection. One could see their own reflection in it. Ma walked up behind my brother who was staring into the head of the ax, knowing all too well why he was there.

  "Pa would have liked this one," Billy said with a smile.

  "He sure would have. It’s a pretty one!"

  Ma placed her hands on Billy's shoulders and pulled him close to her and hugged him. Her eyes went misty and I knew she was missing Pa again. We all did. She sighed deeply and kissed her son on top of the head.

  "We best get what we came for. Grandma Viola will start to worry if we're gone too long."

  Ma and Billy walked up to the counter together where Mrs. Summerland was just finishing a sale with an overweight older gentleman who was supporting a long white beard that lay upon his round belly. I took Katie by the hand and walked her over to the many jars of hard candy on display, deliberately placed on a low shelf, I suspected, to ensure the candy was at eyelevel with any small children who entered the store.

  "How can we help you today, Annie?" I overhear Mrs. Summerland ask with her always genuine smile. I could tell she liked Ma, always remembering her name and showing sincere compassion towards her for being a single mom raising three children by herself.

  "I have a couple baskets of corn and tomatoes in the wagon, a few dozen chicken eggs, and two quilts Ma made."

  "We'll take it all. Just gather what supplies you need and we'll make the trade."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Summerland."

  Ma began picking up a few candles, some kerosene, and other items on her list. She looked over at Katie and me as we both held up one finger in the air with a mile long grin and glanced down at the jars of candy. Ma smiled while she nodded her head and formed the words, "Just one" with her mouth. Katie eagerly picked out a piece of candy and held it in her hands like it was made of gold. I selected a piece of candy and placed it inside my pocket. Grandma Viola loved hard candy almost as much as Katie did. My piece of candy was for her. Billy had ventured to the other side of the store by himself to look at an assortment of cane-poles. Ma continued retrieving items from her list.

  After gathering the supplies she needed, Ma walked back up to the counter.

  "Are you done, Annie?"

  "Yes, Mrs. Summerland."

  “And how's Viola these days?”

  “Oh, she’s doing just fine. I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

  “Please do. Perhaps next time she’ll come with you. I haven’t seen her in ages.”

  “Perhaps… she doesn’t much like being in town. Too many devilish folks, she says.”

  "Sometimes, folks can be a little hateful, but you just have to overlook them. Well, your wagon’s been unloaded. You didn't have a whole lot this time, did you? This lack of rain is hurting everyone's crops this year, I’m afraid."

  "I can put some of this stuff back if it’s too much!" Ma said with concern.

  "No, I didn't mean it like that. You brought us plenty to cover what you have here. Don't you fret none about that."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Summerland. You’re a kind woman."

  Katie and I joined Ma at the front counter.

  "You just take care of these precious children of yours, especially that little Katie. She’s so adorable. Has she gotten her piece of candy yet?"

  "Oh, yes. That was the first place she ran to."

  "That's good. How's Billy doing?"

  "He's doing great," Ma said as she turned around to see where he had gotten off to.

  She looked towards the cane-poles, but he was not there. I saw concern in her eyes as she hurriedly scanned the store. She quickly walked around the store searching for Billy with Katie and me trying to keep close behind her. She then instinctively ran to the store-front window to look outside and I saw a wave of terror instantly engulfed her entire body. As I followed her eyes to the direction she was looking, I saw why she was so terrified. Billy was about to step in front of a fast approaching stagecoach. His attention was fixated on a black and white spotted puppy sitting in the middle of the street.

  Ma dropped her supplies, ran out of the store, and sprinted towards Billy, screaming out his name!

  "BILLY! BILLY… STOP!"

  Billy didn’t seem to hear Ma’s desperate cries over the noise of the city and his infatuation with the small puppy as he stepped in front of the rapidly moving stagecoach. My heart stopped and I was petrified with fear; I couldn’t move. I just held tight to Katie’s hand as the horrifying scene through the dusty window seemed to move in slow motion.

  Despite Ma running faster than I had ever seen her run before, I could tell she wasn't going to make it to Billy before the stagecoach did. Horrible images of my brother being trampled to death burned through my head. I tried to close my eyes, but they to were frozen like the rest of my body. I knew I was about to lose my brother… first Pa and now, Billy. My anger with God began to resurface.

  Miraculously, just before trampling hooves crushed Billy, a man quickly ran at him, swooped him up in his arms, and leaped to the safety of the boardwalk. I don’t know where
this savior came from. I guess I was so fixated on my brother I didn’t notice him until he was on top of Billy, stealing him from the cold grasp of Death’s hand.

  An immediate wave of relief and unimaginable joy swept from my head to my toes. I felt my blood rush back into my extremities. The world around me returned to normal speed and I noticed the sound of my own heart beating inside my chest. I then heard Katie whimper in pain. I looked down at her and realized I had been squeezing her tiny little hand so hard her fingers were white. I let go, thankful she was unaware at what almost happened to her big brother.

  "Billy!" I heard Ma cry as she rushed to her son and embraced him with all the strength she had left. Katie and I walked out to join them.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yes, Ma," Billy answered, a little confused at what had just happened.

  "What were you doing?" Ma's fear had turned into anger. "You could've been killed! You know you're not to venture out in the city by yourself. What were you thinking?"

  "I'm sorry, Ma." Billy was on the verge of crying. "It's just that I saw a little puppy in the street, and I was afraid he would get run over."

  "Don't ever do that again. You nearly killed my heart."

  Ma turned her attention to her boy's savior. He looked to be in his early twenties with dark brown hair that rested on his shoulders and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. He was remarkably handsome, stood about six feet tall, and looked stout in his white button-up shirt and brown slacks. He was carrying a make-shift nap-sack over his broad shoulder and when he looked at me and smiled, showing his dimples, it strangely made me blush ever so slightly.

  "Thank you, so much, mister, for saving my boy! I don't know what I'd have done if I'd lost him. Thank you!"

  Ma held on tight to Billy's hand and tears fell from her eyes as she thanked the stranger over and over.

  "There's no need to thank me. I did what needed to be done…nothing more."

  "What's your name?" I asked.

  "It's Luke."

  When he spoke, it sounded more to me like he was singing than actually talking. It was such a sweet sound…a sound I could have listened to all day.

  "Just Luke?"

  "Yes, just Luke”, he chuckled slightly.

  "Okay… just Luke…are you from around here?" I asked just to hear him talk some more.

  "No, I just got into town and was looking for a place to find a meal when I noticed Billy and the puppy. I’m so glad I was close enough to help!"

  "Where are you from?"

  "Nowhere, really."

  "Hmmm…you're a strange one,” I said.” You’re not running from the law, are you?"

  Luke just snickered and shook his head.

  Ma stepped up to Luke and looked into his eyes…studying them…trying to look into his soul. She had always fancied herself as being a good judge of character and later told me he had the most "honest" eyes she had ever seen. She said it was like looking into a newborn’s eyes, full of innocence. She didn't know exactly why, but she trusted Luke implicitly.

  "You have a place to stay tonight?" she unexpectedly asked Luke.

  "Ma, what are you doing?" I sternly questioned although I pretty much knew what she was up to. "We don't know him. Just thank him and let’s be on our way."

  I wasn't concerned Luke was standing right next to me and could hear me. I was always the type to state my opinion no matter who could hear.

  "Now Lizzy, that wouldn't be the Christian thing to do and you know it."

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head. I had stopped calling myself a Christian ever since God let Pa die. I remember running out of the cabin the day our family got the news there had been an accident at the logging camp and three men had died, one of them being my Pa. I ran to the edge of the river, crying uncontrollably, and fell to my knees. I looked up into the sky with rage.

  "I prayed to You ever night to keep my family safe. You didn't listen. You took my Pa from me! Why? He never done anybody wrong. How dare You! You have no right to take him from me! He is mine! I will never believe in You again."

  That had been two years ago.

  "Luke, you're coming home with us. I'll fix you a good meal and make you a place to lie down in front of the fireplace. That's the least I can do for you for saving my son."

  "I couldn't impose on your family like that," Luke insisted.

  "See Ma, he can't impose. Let him be on his way and we can do the same," I said as I heading for the wagon hoping Ma would follow suit. Luke was the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes on, but inviting a complete stranger into your home was not smart. I couldn’t understand what Ma was thinking. This wasn’t like her.

  "Now, Lizzy, I've made up my mind. Luke’s going with us and that's that. I don't want to hear any sass from you, understand?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "And I don't want any lip from you either, Luke. Just get in the wagon. I won’t take “no” for an answer."

  "Yes, ma'am!" Luke said.

  He climbed into the wagon and sat next to me. He then leaned over towards me and asked, "Is she always this demanding?"

  "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

  Chapter 2